Free The Academy by Bentley Little

curious if anyone else thought that the principal was behaving strangely.
     
     
    There were shaking heads all around.
     
     
    “I saw her before third period,” Yvonne offered. “She was walking into the library.”
     
     
    “Seems like she’s been MIA more often since we turned charter,” Suzanne said. “Anyone else notice that?”
     
     
    “Maybe she’s busy,” Steve suggested.
     
     
    “Doing what?”
     
     
    “I don’t know. Charter stuff.”
     
     
    Linda wanted to share what had happened this morning before school started, what she’d seen, what she’d felt, but the truth was, she hadn’t really seen anything, and her feelings would sound just plain stupid if stated aloud. Her anticharter sentiments were already well-known, so anything she might say that did not have facts to back it up would probably come off as sour grapes.
     
     
    And might very well find its way back to the principal.
     
     
    It was hard to tell where sympathies lay these days.
     
     
    Mary Mercer walked into the lounge looking depressed and out of sorts. “Hey, Grumpy,” Ray said. “Where’s Snow White?”
     
     
    “Shut up,” the French teacher told him, and her tone of voice made it clear that she was not in the mood to joke around.
     
     
    Linda walked over to her. “What is it?”
     
     
    “I don’t know. Nothing, I hope.”
     
     
    “What?”
     
     
    “Nothing.”
     
     
    Mary swung her eyes toward the couch, where Nina Habeck and Ken Myers were discussing the new history textbooks, and Linda understood that the French teacher didn’t want to talk in front of them. “Later,” she said softly, putting a hand on Mary’s arm.
     
     
    Later came after school in the women’s restroom, where she came across Mary dabbing at her red eyes with a tissue in front of one of the mirrors over the sinks.
     
     
    “All right,” Linda said. “Spill it.”
     
     
    The other woman just looked at her.
     
     
    “Come on. There’s no one else here.”
     
     
    She shook her head.
     
     
    “Mary.”
     
     
    “It’s . . . Dennis. I . . .” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I can’t. It’s just too . . . too tabloid TV.”
     
     
    “What is it?” Linda asked softly.
     
     
    Mary blinked into the mirror. “I found e-mails. On his computer.”
     
     
    “No!”
     
     
    “Yes! Some whore named Tina.” She dabbed at her eyes again. “I mean, maybe it’s nothing—maybe I’m overreacting. . . .
     
     
    “No,” she said firmly. “I’m not. I read those e-mails and they were what they were.”
     
     
    “Explicit?”
     
     
    “Oh yes.” Mary’s eyes held a hopeful, questioning look that made her appear almost childlike. “But a lot of people do that these days, right? I mean, a lot of times it’s just fiction, fantasy. They’re not actually having affairs with the people they chat with. They’re just . . . writing. Right?”
     
     
    “I wouldn’t put up with it,” Linda said honestly.
     
     
    “I can’t live with it either. That’s what’s got me so upset.” She looked like she was about to cry again.
     
     
    “Have you confronted him?”
     
     
    “Oh, I couldn’t do that! He’d know I read his e-mails. He’d know I broke his trust.”
     
     
    “Broke his trust? He’s sneaking around behind your back writing sex letters to strangers.”
     
     
    Mary looked down. “I know.”
     
     
    Linda stared at the other teacher. She had no advice to give, no words of wisdom, and the terrible truth was that deep down she was just thankful it was not happening to her, that she did not have to face such a problem. “What are you going to do?” she asked.
     
     
    “I have no idea.”
     
     
    “Even if you don’t want to admit you were spying on his e-mails, you need to get this out in the open. You need to talk it out.”
     
     
    Mary reached over and touched her arm. “Thank you, Linda.”
     
     
    “For what?”
     
     
    “Listening.”
     
     
    By the time she arrived home, Linda had a headache. “So how ends your first week at the charter school?” Frank asked from the